I’m talkin’ something much more common to the landscape of Dixie, U.S.A.

I’m talkin’ kudzu.

These suffocating vegetative mats are leafing as we speak — just as they have done every spring since the late 1880s, when humanity committed environmental heresy and introduced kudzu from the Orient.

Instead of reaching for Roundup, though, mayhaps you should consider cookware.

I have it on good authority that young, tender kudzu leaves — emphasis on young and tender — aren’t bad on a plate or in salad.

“Just don’t wait too long and let ’em get tough and hairy,” Ila Hatter says. “At that stage, there’s no way anything but a goat can eat them. Once, I tried mature kudzu leaves that had been tempura-battered and deep-fried. Not so good.”

If anyone should know about these things, it’s Ila. A resident of Bryson City, N.C., she’s my go-to source of information about wild edibles. Her expertise has been featured in venues as diverse as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, CNN, NBC, the Great Smoky Mountains Association and the University of Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain Field School.

“Kudzu is a lot like spinach,” she said. “I’ve used it in pesto and pasta. A friend of mine has tried it in quiche.”

Just be advised a little goes a long way.

“Once I was at a kudzu festival and ran into some students from the University of Georgia who had experimented with a lot of ways to cook it,” she said with a laugh. “They even compiled a cookbook with 101 different recipes. Several of those students told me they couldn’t wait to graduate and move up north so they’d never have to look at kudzu again!”

The reason I contacted Ila is because of a letter I recently received from Knoxvillian Cassie Sexton. It contained a recipe for kudzu blossom jelly. Soon as the j-word rolled off my tongue, Ila’s kudzu mood improved immediately.

“Oh, now that’s a different thing,” she noted. “I’ve eaten kudzu jelly several times before. A woman who lives near me makes it. It’s quite good. Tastes a lot like grape jelly.”

Just one problem: acquiring enough raw materials is a monumental task.

“I’ve never been able to pick enough blossoms to make even one batch,” she told me. “Apparently it’s just the older vines that bloom. The blossoms always seem to be too high, way out of my reach.”

Figures. It’s just one more reason why kudzu is a major pain in the neck.